


On Repeat

by Let_the_kids_techno



Series: Man I Love College (Hey!) [1]
Category: EDM, Justice (Band)
Genre: College AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Let_the_kids_techno/pseuds/Let_the_kids_techno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaspard goes to Vincent's shitty basement party. His night goes much better than he thought it would, thanks to Xavier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Bright, technicolor flashes of light fill the air. Loud voices strain over even louder music. There’s somebody’s drink spilled on his shoes; it’s a violent purple stain on the white canvas. His head throbs; mostly from the noise, but also from the heat- it’s very hot, as if the dance floor has become a bonfire. So many bodies pushed up against each other, grinding and churning. Arms in the air. 

Gaspard stays firmly pressed to the wall, one leg bent; foot sole pressed to the peeling wallpaper. He almost feels bad about smearing dirt onto the wall, but then he looks at it- green and yellow stripes- and he doesn’t feel so bad. Maybe his mud stain will make them change it to something more aesthetically pleasing. He doubts it.

There are no windows in the basement and no fans either and it feels like he’s suffocating. A warm body pushes past him, right up against him, and he feels trapped. The D.J, Sebastian, makes an error, a slip that runs the notes together in a grinding sound. Everyone else is too drunk to notice it’s a fluke. Gaspard cringes.  
~-~-~  
The porch, he finds, is much better. While it’s a hot summer night, compared to the basement, it feels much cooler. He gulps in a breath and leans against the railing overlooking the yard. It’s dark, and the porch light throws long shadows across the grass and beyond that, the lake. The water glitters like gold in the light. 

It’s a nice house, Gaspard decides, medium in size and, despite the ugly basement, pretty well-decorated. The yard is huge, filled with trees and shadow people who murmur quietly and smoke on the beach beyond the grass. It belongs to the D.J’s boyfriend, a junior at the college he goes too. Vinco something. Kam..Kav…Kavinsky. He’s a pretty cool dude, laid back and extremely friendly. He also has the patience of a saint for putting up with Sebastian. Gaspard’s heard he can be a biting a…handful.

"Too loud?"A voice asks from right behind him. He gives a startled grunt and turns his neck quickly. His eyes swim with whiplash. A man - a very pretty man- stands behind him with a bright purple drink in his hand. Gaspard is thankful for the cover of darkness because his neck and face grow hot. 

"Too hot," he clarifies. Gaspard isn’t much of a talker around strangers, preferring to listen instead. He especially isn’t a talker around pretty strangers. 

"I see. Sebastian keeps messing up, but I’m pretty sure it’s Vinco’s fault. Wandering hands, if you catch my drift. Got a little annoying, though," the man says, and sets his drink on the railing. It teeters for a moment and for a second Gaspard worries it will spill onto the man’s white jeans. Gaspard looks up again and stares at him. 

"I mean- Sebastian is good, though. I’m not-I’m not insulting him," the man clarifies, and sounds a little embarrassed, like he was talking about somebody to one of their friends. He looks cute flustered. Gaspard berates himself mentally. He’s meeting a girl at midnightanyway, what’s he doing looking at other people?

"Too much distortion," Gaspard says finally, realizing he should probably stop the man’s babbling. 

"Yeah," the man breathes, relieved. He sticks out his hand, "I’m Xavier." He crowds into Gaspard’s personal space until Gaspard can smell cigarette spoke, bitter alcohol, and underneath that, some kind of cologne. He tries not to think about how weird smelling someone is. 

Xavier has the word ‘bad’ tattooed onto his arm in flowing cursive and it peeks out of his three-quarter sleeve v-neck. He also has a bird and a cross inked into his smooth flesh. The cross looks remarkably similar to Gaspard’s own tattoo. He reaches out and shakes the offered appendage.

"Gaspard." He says.

Xavier glances at his arm and grins, eyes crinkling at the edges, and his nose wrinkles just the tiniest bit. The sight steals Gaspard’s breath and he suddenly wants to make him do it again, to never stop doing it. He wants to know this man.

"We match," Xavier says around his blinding smile. Gaspard reluctantly releases his hand. He steps out of his personal space until his back is pressed against the railing. The drink perched on the railing tips and tumbles over the edge. It shatters on the concrete below. A voice from below curses. 

"Ooops." Xavier giggles.

Gaspard blushes with embarrassment, and he’s sure his face has suddenly caught fire, it feels so warm. “I am so sorry,” he says in a rush, “let me go get you a new one.” 

He moves toward the door, cursing himself. Smooth. Real smooth. Xavier lays a hand on his shoulder, smile still firmly fixed in place. “No need. I’m not a big drinker anyway…I really shouldn’t be drinking in the first place.”

Gaspard raises an eyebrow, “How old are you?” 

"18," Xavier says sheepishly. "But I’m going to be 19 in a few weeks. You?"

"20." Gaspard says, and then suddenly a thought occurs to him. "You said you knew Sebastian. D’you go to CheeryvilleUniversity?" 

Xavier shakes his head, “No…not yet, anyway. I’m starting there this year. Sebastian was a friend of mine back in high-school. He and I, along with our other two friends, are starting there this year. Why? Do you go?” 

Gaspard nods and shifts his weight to his other leg. A breeze blows and whips Xavier’s hair into his face. Gaspard pushes his fists into the pockets of his jeans to stop himself from moving it away from Xavier’s mouth. “Yeah. I’ll be a sophomore.”

"Is it hard to get around? I know I’m way too old, but I’m sort of afraid I’ll get lost." 

"It’s not so hard after a while," Gaspard says. 

"Cool." Xavier says, and moves toward him. Gaspard stiffens, but Xavier doesn’t touch him, just leans his arms on the railing and looks at the lake. They stay quiet for a long moment, but it’s comfortable. 

The trees rustle behind him, mingling with the musing voices of other party goers that escaped the dance floor. The bass resonating up from the basement makes the deck hum under his feet. Gaspard tilts his head back and looks up at the cloudless sky, eyes skimming over the inky darkness. He only makes out the big dipper in the mass of stars.

"I worked as a lifeguard this summer," Xavier says suddenly, still staring at the lake.

Gaspard thinks that’s a weird thing to say. Gaspard also doesn’t mind learning things about Xavier so he says, “That sounds fun.” It does too; Gaspard likes the beach. 

"I hated it," the shorter man laughs and Gaspard turns his head so he can see it- see the way Xavier’s eyes crinkle. "The water ruined my hair and I had sand everywhere. Not to mention, I smelled like a lake all day. I’m not even sure why I did it…money, I guess." 

Gaspard chuckles at the image. “I work at a record store. It’s not as…exciting as working at a beach.”

"Are you kidding me? That’s awesome! You get to listen and talk about music all day! I wish I worked at a record store." 

"I can see if we’re hiring," Gaspard says, because it’s really the only thing he can say that’s not ‘Yeah’.

"Really?!" Xavier sounds hopeful. 

"Sure. We can…we can go right now and look around if you want. I have the keys and Pedro won’t mind." He offers.

"That would be awesome! Are you sure it’s okay? I mean, I don’t want you to get fired or anything."

"The owner’s a friend. I mean, as long as we don’t break anything or destroy the place." 

Xavier gives a dramatic frown, “Curses, foiled again. I thought we could smash all the records and sell all the CD’s on eBay.”

Gaspard just laughs and laughs.  
~-~-~

Ed Banger Records is a hole in the wall; a narrow brick space in the strip-mall on Mainstreet. It’s bordered by the Early Bird Cafe and Johnson’s Meat and Produce, so it has the tendency to smell like either coffee or raw meat. Tonight it smells like coffee when Gaspard opens the glass door. He silently thanks God. Nothing kills the mood more than the smell of bloody animal carcass. 

Not that he was trying to set a mood or anything. ‘You’re meeting a girl, you’re meeting a girl, Youaremeetingagirlstopthis,’ he tells himself, over and over. One grin from Xavier and he knows he’s going to ditch her. 

The store is ridiculously dark, and he tells Xavier to wait by the door so he doesn’t trip and kill himself. The irony is, Gaspard trips, just as he’s reaching the light switch. He goes tumbling forward; arms flailing helplessly. One of his arms catches on a box of cassette tapes, and it tips over and goes crashes to the ground. Tapes spill every which way and some skitter under one of the shelves. Well, fuck.

“Everything okay?” Xavier calls, voice nervous.

“Yeah.” Gaspard grunts, heaves himself up, and flips the switch. The store is suddenly illuminated and he hears Xavier move towards him. Gaspard scoops up all the cassettes and pushes them back into the cardboard box. He doesn’t bother to make them neat; it’ll give him something to do tomorrow. This time, he slides the box all the way onto the counter, instead of leaving it teetering precariously on the edge. Pedro, the lazy ass.

“This place is awesome,” Xavier says quietly, and looks around at the posters lining walls. “I saw it when Guy-Manuel and I drove up to look at the dorms. I wanted to stop in, but Guy said he wanted to get to the school early.” 

“Guy-Manuel?” Gaspard asks, because he has no idea who he is, and because a small part of his brain is screaming, ‘Boyfriend! Shit, he has a boyfriend!’

“My roommate. I was so happy we got paired together, I have this thing with sharing rooms with strangers, y’know?”

“I think everyone has that,” Gaspard says, relaxing slightly. Sharing a room was awful at first. His first roommate constantly touched his artwork, borrowed his clothes without asking, and then had that one incident with the cucumber. He never could forget that. 

He made sure he was getting a new one this year. 

“Not my friend Thomas,” Xavier laughs, and sifts through one of the CD bins,“he’s friends with about everybody and everything. He’s like some kind of Disney princess; like, small children and woodland creatures flock to him. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t like him.”

Gaspard snorts, “Not possible. Someone somewhere has to dislike him.” 

Xavier takes out a CD and adds it to a growing pile he has. “You think I’m joking, but I’m not. There was this one time back in high-school, and some kids were making fun of Guy-Man for being kind of girly-in looks anyway- and Thomas just stalks up, and man, I’ve never seen him so mad. He just goes ‘Leave my boyfriend alone.’” 

At this point Xavier has stopped looking through the CD’s and is gesticulating wildly; his hands are fluttering like excited birds. His eyes are alight.

“And they fucking apologized! One minute it was ‘hey princess’ and the next it’s ‘oh I’m sorry Tom. Didn’t know he was your boyfriend.’ They just apologized to both of them, gave Thomas a high five, and walked off like nothing happened.” 

“No shit, huh?” Gaspard says, his eyebrows raised so high they’re disappearing into his hairline.

Xavier just grins in an ‘I told you so’ way and goes back to picking out CDs.

“You know,” Gaspard says and runs a hand through his short curls, “You can’t buy any of those…”

Xavier looks at him and frowns, “Why not?”

Xavier’s tone and pout make him seem much younger, and Gaspard finds it a little endearing. 

“Because, I can’t open up the register at,” Gaspard checks his watch, “11:56 pm.”

He’s going to miss his date with the girl from school, he realizes. He also realizes he doesn’t care; because if he did somehow make it in time, he’d be thinking about Xavier for the whole date.

Xavier looks startled. “Is it really that late already?” 

“Yeah.”

The younger man gives the pile of CD’s a frown and moves to put them back but Gaspard stops him with a raised hand. 

“I’ll put them up front and you can come back and get them tomorrow. I mean…if you want to. I’ll be working and-“

“Yes,” Xavier interrupts, and he looks ridiculously amused about something.“I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

Gaspard finds himself smiling with relief. Xavier’s eyes dart around the front counter for a split second, and Gaspard is tempted to ask if he needs anything. Xavier seems to find what he’s looking for, however, because he is suddenly moving without warning and grabbing something off the glass counter.

“Sharpie,” Xavier explains. He holds up the marker like it’s a prize. “Give me your arm,” he instructs, but takes Gaspard’s arm before Gaspard can even move.

Gaspard feels the cold, wet, feeling of felt and ink dragging across his skin and gets lost in the sensation for a moment.

“There,” Xavier says, looking proud of his work. He caps the marker and tosses it back toward the counter. It misses, and goes sailing behind some boxes.

“Oops,” Xavier laughs and Gaspard grins too.

Gaspard looks down at the number written on his arm. He’s knows what it is, but he asks just to make sure, “What is it?”

“My phone number, dork. If I don’t come back tomorrow, call me and remind me. I forget things sometimes.”

“Okay,” Gaspard says, and smiles a little. He has Xavier’s number. It’s inked onto his skin. The first thought in his head is that he’s going to put it in his cell phone as soon as Xavier leaves, and no, that’s not even a little creepy.

“Cool,” Xavier says and looks at the front door a little sadly. “Thank you…for taking me here, and making my night actually fun and not just some lame party. It was…really nice meeting you. We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

“Yeah,” Gaspard says simply, and deeply wishes he was better with words, “You too. I had a good time. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yup! As soon as I can. Those CD’s aren’t going to buy themselves, you know,”Xavier says in a sing-song voice.

Eventually, after several different attempts at a ‘good-bye’, Xavier manages to get out the front door. As his form disappears out the front door and into the summer night, Gaspard can’t help but feel like something very important has just happened.

He can still feel the Sharpie inking numbers onto his forearm.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaspard and Xavier have a misunderstanding. Pedro is a little shit.

Xavier's stack of CD's isn't next to the register when Gaspard gets to work that morning. Pedro catches him staring, and like the freaky mind reader he is, pipes up from his spot between the racks he's stocking, "Before you ask, no. He didn't come in this morning. I restocked them."

Gaspard tries his best to not look disappointed, but his face falls despite all his effort. "Oh," is all he says. He makes a big show of putting on his name tag, when really he's just using it as an excuse to look at the ground and pretend his chest doesn't ache. He really doesn't want Pedro to continue talking; he already knows what the man is going to say.

Pedro does continue though, having stopped his stocking and chosen instead to watch Gaspard with calculating eyes, "It's been six days Gaspard. I don't...I don't think he's gonna show up."

And those right there are the exact words Gaspard has been telling himself since Xavier had failed to come in Ed Banger Records that day like he had promised.  
"I know," he says with a heavy sigh, and it's a little like letting go. A little like acceptance. 

In a way he's glad the CD's are gone; they were a constant reminder of the man he had unwillingly fallen a little bit in love with. Without them catching his eye like usual, he finds it a tiny bit easier to push Xavier out of his head, and get some work done.  
\---  
"Did you ever call him?" Pedro asks eventually, because the man has a problem keeping quiet and an even bigger problem with minding his own damn business. 

"No," Gaspard says sullenly, and looks at his arm (despite it being clean of ink for days) where Xavier had written his number down, as if out of habit, "I wasn't going to call him that night-that seemed a little creepy, and when he didn't show up the next day, I-" 

Pedro interrupts, "figured he didn't want to talk to you?" 

"Yeah," Gaspard grits out and sets down the box of records he was carrying a little harder than necessary. "Can you just drop it? I really don't want to talk about it anymore," he says and finds himself growing angrier by the second. Hoping to avoid blowing up at his boss, and best friend, he announces he's going on break and makes for the front door. 

"I'm sorry," Pedro says with so much sincerity that Gaspard suddenly feels like the worlds biggest asshole. It's not Pedro's fault.

Gaspard leaves, and considers not coming back.  
\----  
Gaspard does come back, an hour and a half later, with a steaming cup of coffee for Pedro and a better attitude. He walks through the back door with every intent to apologize and tell Pedro he's done moping over some dude he'd only talked to for a few hours. All words freeze on his tongue when he sees Pedro's uneasy face. It's such a shocking contrast to the man's usual cheery features, it has Gaspard worrying instantly.

"Is everything okay," He asks, fearing the worst. "Is everything alright? Did something happen to Bertrand?" 

Bertrand is Pedro's boyfriend, an art major who occasionally comes in to put up flyers he'd drawn advertising concerts of various garage bands. Pedro shakes his head and gesticulates toward the front of the store with jerky hands. Luckily, Gaspard is fluent in Pedro and says, "Who's out front? Is it that Guetta guy? I tell him to get lost-" 

"No!" Pedro hisses in a whisper so loud it might as well be shouting, "It's him."

Oh.

Oh shit, Gaspard thinks, and his mouth has gone dry. As discretely as he can, the curly haired man peeks out from the back room. His heart is pounding and it feels like he'd been shoving cotton balls into his mouth. He catches sight of the man he'd met at Kavinsky's party, and suddenly he's not sure if he wants to talk to him. He's a little angry and feels more than a little awkward.

Xavier waves at him.

Fuck.

Swallowing nervously, Gaspard slips from the break room and makes his way toward Xavier like a convict might make his way toward a set of gallows. 

"Hey," he mumbles.

"Hi," Xavier says, and despite his cheerful face he sounds nervous.

They stare each other, neither making a move to talk. As the seconds creep by Gaspard grows tenser and tenser until he finally bursts. "Why didn't you ever show up?" 

Xavier cringes, like he was hoping Gaspard wasn't going to bring it up. "You never called me," the man says lamely. If it's some kind of excuse, it's a shitty one.

"I figured you didn't want to talk to me." Gaspard explains, not wanting to beat-around-the-bush any longer. He's tired of waiting and worrying.

He can feel eyes boring into the back of his neck, feels the prickling sensation crawling up his back. He's tempted to turn around and flip Pedro off, but Xavier is here and Gaspard would rather deal with Pedro's prying gaze then tear his eyes away from Xavier's face. He's a little worried that if he looks away, Xavier will be gone when he turns back.

"I told you I forget things easily! I explicitly remember telling you to call me if I didn't show up- I was kinda hoping you were gonna call me." Xavier sighs and rubs a hand over his face, he looks frustrated. 

"I really was going to come in," he says finally with a bit of hesitance, "but then I starting wondering if you were just...being nice to me or something. So I waited for you to call me, and you never did."

Gaspard is starting to feel like the worlds biggest idiot, he might as well put that award next to his 'Worlds Biggest Asshole' award while he's at it. He opens his mouth, ready to spew apologies and assure Xavier that, no, he really does like him. Likes him enough to stare wistfully out the front window for six days, waiting to catch a glimpse of his hair or his tattoos.

But before he can say anything Xavier continues, "I wasn't even going to come today, because the last thing I wanted to do was show up and get rejected again."

"I didn't reject you," Gaspard interjects lamely. 

" I didn't know that!" Xavier says and throws up his arms, but Gaspard can see the corner of his mouth twitch upwards. The worry coiled in Gaspard's stomach unfurls a bit. 

"You're both idiots," Pedro says with an amused voice. He's standing behind Gaspard in such a close proximity that when Gaspard panics and flails (and he does panic, because how the fuck does Pedro teleport like that) the box of tapes Pedro is holding nearly goes flying.

"What is with you and knocking over boxes of casset tapes?" Xavier laughs, and Gaspard whips his head around so fast he nearly gets whiplash. But he has to see it-see the way Xavier's face lights up and his nose crinkles just the tinniest bit.

Pedro is gone when he turns back, disappeared between two rows of shelves. "You could have mentioned he was behind me," Gaspard says to Xavier desperately, clutching his chest. 

Xavier's smile is devious. "That's what you get for making me think you rejected me."

"I didn't reject you!" Gaspard repeats with a groan.

"Good to know." And oh- Xavier's tone is down right flirty. The mood has completely changed in seconds flat.

"Yeah," Gaspard mumbles like the wordsmith he is. Why is he so bad at this? 

"And since you didn't reject me, and you put me through such an emotional trauma, I'd say you owed me dinner." 

Gaspard can see Pedro peering through the shelves out of the corner of his eye-nosy ass. He's giving Gaspard a blinding smile and a thumbs up. 

"I-I think that could be arranged," he says, growing bolder. This is Xavier-the man he managed to connect with instantly. Gaspard is drawn to him.

Xavier grins again,"how does tonight sound? Seven?"

"I can do that," Gaspard smiles, his first real smile of the day.

"Awesome! Now that we've cleared up that misunderstanding, I remember leaving you some CD's..."

Well fuck. Gaspard could just about kill Pedro.

"About that-" He says awkwardly. 

Xavier shakes his head, smile never leaving his features, "You put them back didn't you?" 

"I didn't! Pedro did!" Gaspard says indignantly.

Xavier moves forward, closing the distance between them until his right in Gaspard's space. The shorter man takes his hand and looks up at him with bright eyes.

"You'll just have to help me find them again," he murmurs softly, and when he tugs on Gaspard's hand, Gaspard follows him with a smile that could light up a darkened room.


End file.
